© Anja Striberny, Nofima
Light control is widely used in aquaculture to promote healthy growth, synchronise smoltification and to prevent early sexual maturation. This is achieved by adjusting the light’s intensity, quality and timing.
Now, by considering how fish themselves perceive light, researchers hope to develop lighting regimes that align more closely with their biology.
Industry Survey launched
Anja Striberny, project leader at Nofima, and her colleagues are currently mapping out how light is used in the industry in Norway.
“There are more than a thousand scientific articles on the effects of light on salmon and trout. Fish farmers have requested a knowledge-based overview, so we have launched a survey about their light control. We hope industry players will respond, so we can connect research-based knowledge with practical experience,” said Striberny in a press release.
In addition to the survey, the project group will review scientific literature and carry out new experiments to better understand the interaction between light and fish physiology.
A fundamental challenge lies in the way that light is currently measured. The standard unit, lux, is based on human vision and may not accurately represent how fish experience light. The team led by Alexander West, a scientist at The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), is working to characterise the light response of light-sensitive proteins, known as opsins, in salmon.
“Humans only have a few opsins, while salmon have more than fifty. Characterising these is an important step towards measuring light from the salmon’s perspective,” added West.
While scientists at SINTEF Ocean will characterise some of the unknown light environments, Nofima and NORCE will test what different light qualities mean for salmon physiology and welfare.
The project is a collaboration between both research and industry representatives. Scientific partners include Nofima, UiT, SINTEF Ocean, NORCE, the University of Manchester and the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN). Industry collaborators include Salmar Settefisk, Grieg Seafood, and NCE Aquaculture. Funded by the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF), the project is set to run until June 2028.
